Comparative Estimation of Ascorbic Acid Content in Some Ngeria Fruits Viz: (Orange) Citrus Sinesis, (Pineapple) Ananas Cosmosus
Chapter One
AIMS AND OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
This project work is aimed at estimating the ascorbic acid contents of various Nigerian frits viz Citrus Sinensis and Ananas Cosmosus and also to compare the ascorbic acid level of the Nigerian fruits analyzed.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF ASCORBIC ACID
As early as 1498, Vasco Da gama’s sailor suffered that nose and gums blood made their joint swell, and caused them to become generally weak.
James lind, a ship surgeon in the English navy, had the genius record, and experiment with scurvy patients on board, the H.M.S Salisbury in 1747, and his classical work led to the estimation of scurvy among the crew ships, he wrote a treatise on scurvy in 1753 showing that it could be cured with a daily dose of lime or lemon juice. Not only that scurvy could be cured by eating oranges, limes and lemons, but he developed a method for concentrating and preserving citrus fruits juice for use at sea.
In 1795, the Royal navy began to provide a regular daily ration of lime or lemon juice to all its men, and the word “Limey” which is still used to designate an English seller originated form practice.
In the period around 1900 it was recognized that certain diseases, including scurvy and beriberi are deficiency diseases, caused by the lack of certain substances in the diet. A numbers of effort were made to separate pure vitamin C, the substances that was thought to prevent scurvy, from lemon juice and other foods.
Willis in 1953 studied the similarity between the vascular injury in scurvy and that of atherosclerosis same 1953 krebs reported that in the experiment with ten healthy young men (age 21 to 34 years) who were given a scorbutogeric diet, two became suddenly severely ill with cardiac emergencies requiring hospitalization. These observations indicate that a deficiency in vitamin C may lead to cardiovascular disease.
HISTORICAL REVIEW OF FRUITS
Fruits are regarded as a mature of ripened ovary. A fruit consists of two portions, the pericarp developed from the wall of the ovary, and the seeds developed from the ovules; the pericarp may be thick or thin, then thick it may consist of two or three parts: the outer called epicarp forms the skin fruits like mango, peach, plum etc. and the inner, called endocarp is often very thin and membranous as in orange or it may be hard and strong cases, however the pericarp is not differentiated into these three regions.
When only the ovary of the flower grows into the fruits,it is commonly known as the true fruit, but often it is found that other floral parts such as the thalamus, receptacle, or calyx may also grow and form a part of the fruit, such a fruits is known as the false of spurious fruits of pseudo carp. Thus is Dillenia the calyx is persistent and fleshly forming the prominent and the only edible part of the fruits. In apple and pear the thalamus grows round the interior ovary and becomes freshly in the fruits.
CHAPTER THREE
MATERIAL AND METHOD
EQUIPMENT
- Flask
- Pipette (5ml)
- Test tubes
- Test tube holder
- Squeezer
- Chemical balance
- Funnel
- Spectrophotometer
- Water basins or gallons
- Pure ascorbic acid (obtained commercially)
- Red litmus paper
- Filter paper
REAGENT USED
- Pure Ascorbic acid (obtained commercially)
- Distilled water
METHODOLOGY OF ANALYSIS
The method used for the analysis is the spectrophotometric method. This process uses the absorptive maximum of the ascorbic acid to compare with the different sample of fruit. Juices collected Citrus Sinensis and Ananas Cosmosus
PREPARATION OF SAMPLE
About 10 pieces of (orange) Citrus Sinensis fruits and 5 pieces of (pineapple) Ananas Cosmosus were used in the preparation of the samples.
Firstly the fruits were washed thoroughly with distilled water, they were peeled to remove the outer covering, and thereafter they were blended using the common blender at 250 r/m for 7 minutes.
The blended samples were filtered using filter paper; about 100ml of each of the filtrate was collected in a clear dry sterile bottle. Analysis was conducted immediately after the collection of the sample.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULT ANALYSIS
From the result obtained in chapter three, it was clear that (orange) Citrus Sinensis contains 7.5 x 10-2gml (pineapple) Ananas Cosmosus contains 6.0 x 10-2g/ml of ascorbic acid level. It was deduced that orange had the highest concentration of ascorbic acid level and pineapple had the least.
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION
Comparative analyses of Ascorbic acid content of some Nigerian fruits viz: (orange) Citrus Sinensis and (pineapple) Ananas Cosmosus was carried out. The results obtained showed the (orange) Citrus Sinensis contain 7.5 x 10-2g/ml level of Ascorbic acid, and (pineapple) Ananas Cosmosus contain 1.87 x 104g/ml. This result agreed with the works of okaka J.C et al, 1992 where Ascorbic used was obtained and estimated in some citrus fruits. In summary, it can be conducted that (orange) Citrus Sinensis and (Pineapple) Ananas Cosmosus contains various level of Ascorbic acid also (orange) Citrus Sinensis has the highest level of Ascorbic acid of 7.5 x 102 followed by (pineapple) Ananas Cosmosus.
RECOMMENDATION
Ascorbic acid should be taken by individuals especially the elderly, the sick and infants.
Citrus fruits are sources of Ascorbic acid and should be encourage and produced commercially to the reach of the average Nigeria. Other sources of Ascorbic acid other them citrus should be encouraged and produced commercially more research should be down on other fruits other than citrus for alternative sources of Ascorbic acid.
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